Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula

al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), also known as Ansar al-Sharia, is a Salafi Islamist insurgent group with 3,000+ members that operated in Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Formed in January 2009, AQAP was well-known as a military threat during the Yemeni Civil War and a far-reaching terrorist group that planned several attacks, successfully executing the Charlie Hebdo massacre.

History
al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula was formed in January 2009 as a merger of the al-Qaeda branches in Yemen and Saudi Arabia, and on 14 December 2009 it was designated a terrorist group by the United States. Soon, al-Qaeda moved from Pakistan to Somalia and Yemen, and AQAP became known not just as a military threat to Yemen during their insurgency against the government, but also as the group that made plans for terrorist attacks across the world. On 1 June 2009, an American Muslim convert, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, killed one American soldier and wounded one in an attack at a recruitment station in Little Rock, Arkansas and claimed that he was sent by AQAP. They also claimed that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had acted on their behalf in the failed Christmas 2009 plane bombing, and the 21 May 2012 suicide attack against Yemeni Army troops in Sana'a left over 120 dead in Yemen's deadliest terrorist attack. The group carried out several suicide bombings against the two governments, and it also fought in an insurgency in Yemen with armed fighters. They took over parts of southern Yemen such as Aden and Abyan, and they took advantage of the 2015 outbreak of the Yemeni Civil War to take over large parts of southern Yemen. The United States succeeded in taking out much of the leadership in drone strikes, including leader Nasir al-Wuhayshi and fellow commanders Ibrahim al-Rubaish and Nasser al-Ansi.